Who is robert devereux earl of essex

This ended in failure. Essex was tried and executed for treason on 25 February Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so.

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Elizabeth I — queen of England and Ireland. Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley — courtier and magnate.

Philip Sidney — author and courtier. See all related overviews in Oxford Reference ». English courtier, favourite of Elizabeth I. He distinguished himself as a soldier during the Dutch Revolt , but earned the queen's displeasure by participating in the disastrous Lisbon expedition and by marrying Sir Philip Sidney's widow The love-hate relationship between queen and courtier continued throughout the s.

He commanded an English contingent during the French Wars of Religion —92 and shared in the capture of Cadiz Gradually, his rivalry with the Cecil faction grew. He failed ignominiously and was stripped of his offices. Henry VII. Anne Boleyn. That night he wrote to a friend about the incident: "It seemed she Elizabeth could not well endure anything to be spoken against him Walter Raleigh She said there was no such cause why I should disdain him.

This speech troubled me so much I did let her see whether I had cause to disdain his competition of love, or whether I could have comfort to give myself over to the service of a mistress that was in awe of such a man In the end I saw she was resolved to defend him, and to cross me. For myself, I told her, I had no joy to be in any place but loath to be near about her when I knew my affection so much thrown down, and such a wretch as Raleigh highly esteemed of her.

The following morning Essex decided to leave the Queen's service and travel to Europe. However, as he rode towards the port of Sandwich , he was overtaken by Robert Carey , one of Elizabeth's courtier's, with a message commanding him to return to court. Essex had been forgiven and on the death of Robert Dudley , Earl of Leicester, in September, , he was invited to move into his stepfather's lodgings in the palace.

At times the rivalry also came close to being fought out with swords. At Christmas , Essex and Raleigh apparently came to the very brink of duelling at Richmond, only to be thwarted by the intervention of the queen and the privy council. The exact date is not known but it was probably in March Devereux bore him a son, Robert, in January When the Queen discovered about the marriage she "stamped and raged and roared when she heard of Essex's marriage After only a fortnight Essex was welcomed back into her inner-circle.

Anna Whitelock , the author of Elizabeth's Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen's Court compares to to the way she treated Robert Dudley after she found out about his secret marriage: "His relationship with the Queen was very different from that which Elizabeth had shared with Dudley.

There had been - on both sides - genuine love and perhaps unrequited ambition for a marriage; whereas Essex's relationship with her was a flirtation which made the ageing Queen feel young and attractive again. After the death of Walsingham, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, took command of the intelligence service.

He was described at the time as a man "of low stature, slender every way, dark yellow haired on the head, and clear yellow beard, eaten in the face with smallpox, of short sight, thirty years of age by appearance.

Essex was now able to provide secret information direct to Queen Elizabeth. Intelligence lay at the very heart of her policy, so she welcomed the fact that, thanks to Essex, she learned things that not even the Cecils knew. One of the secrets of her authority was an ability to boast of being the best-informed person in her realm. She could not, therefore, depend on a single source and was quite happy to encourage competition in this sphere.

It is claimed that Roderigo Lopez incurred the hostility of Essex, when he revealed that he had treated him for syphilis. This was followed by the arrest of Lopez's courier, Gomez d'Avila. When he was interrogated he implicated Lopez. Phelippes also discovered a letter that stated: "The King of Spain had gotten three Portuguese to kill her Majesty and three more to kill the King of France".

On 28th January , Essex, wrote a letter to Anthony Bacon : "I have discovered a most dangerous and desperate treason. The point of conspiracy was her Majesty's death. The executioner should have been Doctor Lopez. The manner by poison. This I have so followed that I will make it appear as clear as the noon day. William Cecil was put in a difficult situation as he was employing Lopez, along with Portuguese-Jewish called Manuel de Andrada, as double-agents.

To protect his sources, Cecil told Queen Elizabeth that there was no evidence against Lopez. Elizabeth told Essex that she considered the "evidence as a tissue of malicious fabrications" and Essex as a "rash and temerarious youth". According to Lacey Baldwin Smith , the author of Treason in Tudor England : "Enraged and humiliated, the Earl stalked out of the royal presence, dashed at breakneck speed back to London and Essex House, and locked himself into his private bedchamber.

For two days, oscillating between bouts of obsessive brooding and overwork, Essex examined, cross-examined, and re-examined everyone concerned with Lopez. They confessed that they had indeed been involved in a conspiracy with Roderigo Lopez to murder Queen Elizabeth. On the rack, he confessed that he had accepted money from the Spanish intelligence services to carry out the poisoning using exotic drugs he had obtained abroad.

Sir Edward Coke , the Attorney-General, opened the trial by arguing that the three men had been seduced by Jesuit priests with great rewards to kill the Queen "being persuaded that it is glorious and meritorious, and that if they die in the action, they will inherit heaven and be canonised as saints". He pointed out that Lopez was "her Majesty's sworn servant, graced and advanced with many princely favours, used in special places of credit, permitted often access to her person, and so not suspected This Lopez, a perjuring murdering traitor and Jewish doctor, more than Judas himself, undertook the poisoning, which was a plot more wicked, dangerous and detestable than all the former.

Coke emphasized the three men's secret Judaism and they were all convicted of high treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. William Cecil wanted to ensure that Lopez was executed to protect himself from a possible investigation.

This was a sign that she was still not convinced that Lopez was really involved in a plot against her. Robert Devereux continued to remain close to Queen Elizabeth. However, he continued to upset Elizabeth and her senior government officials with his erratic behaviour. Robert Lacey , the author of Robert, Earl of Essex , believes that the answer can be found in his his early relationship with his parents: The truth must lie deeper, in the relationship between the cuckolded father he hardly saw and the intense, unfaithful mother busy stalking her new lover.

The labyrinth that was Essex was knotted up in his superficial eagerness to please and his wary reluctance to commit himself, his constant testing of new friends and acquaintances. He allowed no one really close to him. Was he incapable of genuine love and friendship? He could only relax in the transparent insincerity of Court alliance or the crude platitudes of battlefield comradeship. Ever ready to slap drinking companions on the back, he was suspicious of men who asked and offered more.

It was strange, for he was not incapable of subtlety, indeed sometimes he seemed overcome by the impossible contradictions he could sense in himself, succumbing to vast waves of panic, tumbling head over heels, arms flailing into a void of despair. For he could grasp no middle in himself that he could come to terms with, acting out the bluff warrior, the courtly lover, the grave man of affairs, but floundering from one persona to the next with no idea of what lay between.

Essex continued to collect intelligence reports and in he reported to Queen Elizabeth , William Cecil and Robert Cecil , that Spain was developing plans to invade England. However, after a minor Spanish raid on Cornwall late in July encouraged unanimous support for a pre-emptive strike against Spain. This decision was finalised when in April , the Spanish army marched on Calais.

After taking the town it laid siege to the garrison. Spain now had a foothold just across the Channel. On 3rd June the English fleet set sail for Cadiz , a major port on the Andalusian coast some forty miles from Seville. Three weeks later the fleet rounded the cape into the Bay of Biscay and began demolishing the Spanish navy.

Essex led the troops ashore and stormed Cadiz and plundered the city's vast riches. According to Edgar Samuel : "This day's action was the most complete and dramatic English victory of the war against Spain. However, Essex failed to convince the lord admiral that Cadiz should be held in defiance of the queen's instructions. The vast riches which were plundered from the city also made many officers anxious to return home.

With great reluctance Essex agreed that Cadiz should be burned and abandoned. Essex returned to England on 8th August and was given a hero's welcome when the ship dropped anchor at Plymouth. However, Queen Elizabeth was furious with Essex for giving the booty from Cadiz to his men. She ordered William Cecil to carry out an investigation into Essex's conduct of the campaign.

He was eventually cleared of incompetence but it has been claimed that Elizabeth never forgave him for his actions. According to Roger Lockyer the Queen refused to give him what he wanted because she "distrusted his popularity and also resented the imperious manner in which he claimed advancement. He now resumed his efforts to influence foreign policy and remained committed to waging an aggressive war against Spain.

However, the Queen was now looking for a peaceful settlement. In June, , Essex's frustrations erupted during a meeting of the Privy Council over the appointment of a new Lord Deputy in Ireland. When he disagreed with her suggestion for the post, she responded by striking Essex over the head. Essex impetuously reached for his sword and Charles Howard , 1st Earl of Nottingham, threw himself in front of the Queen. Essex left the room shouting that he "neither could nor would put up with so great an affront and indignity.

Sir Thomas Egerton , one of the senior figures in the government, wrote to Essex urging him to make peace with the Queen. He replied that "the Queen is obdurate, and I cannot be senseless. I see the end of my fortunes and have to set an end to my desires". Another source claims that Essex commented that the Queen "was as crooked in her disposition as in her carcass.

An estimated men were killed including their commander, Henry Bagenal. Essex now returned to Court and offered his services to deal with Tyrone. The Queen agreed and gave him a far larger army and more supplies than had been allowed for any previous Irish expedition. It has been argued that Queen Elizabeth selected the Earl of Essex for this task because he had demonstrated on several occasions his courage and powers of leadership. Men responded to his name with enthusiasm, and this disposed of the difficulty of raising a large force - an indispensable prerequisite of success.

Everyone was eager to serve under Essex. Elizabeth Jenkins , the author of Elizabeth the Great pointed out that it was not long before Essex realised he had made a serious political mistake: "But almost at once, and long before his forces were embarked, Essex was regarding his appointment with self-pitying bitterness. He had felt he owed it to himself to allow no one else to take it, but he foresaw that once he was over the Irish Sea, his enemies in Council would undermine him He departed on a tide of popular enthusiasm, the crowd following him for four miles as he rode out of London, but from the outset he bore himself in an injured and almost hostile manner to the Queen and Council.

He originally intended to attack the Earl of Tyrone in the north, both by sea and by land.